Watari Pt 2: Wammy's House

Matt had assumed that Mello was upstairs, so it was surprising to notice, as he wandered through the hallway, that the door of their living room was open. This was one of the more under-used rooms in their home. It had been fully furnished and redecorated after they had first moved in. For a couple of days after Mello had declared this particular masterpiece of interior decorating completed, they had sat in, before naturally drifting back to their studies. This room had been intended for communal relaxation, but their studies had all of their books, games and computers. This room only had a television.



Matt peeped around the door and noted with a jolt that Mello was staring straight back at him. The blond was sprawled on their \'nice\' settee, which might have accommodated guests, had either of them the inclination or lack of paranoia to actually invite someone into their home. The blue eyes fixed upon him were dark with some inner tension, however beautifully lined with kohl they might be; however, Mello smiled suddenly and his whole face lit up. Matt reached around the door and threw a bar of chocolate at him, which he caught one-handed. "Have you finished your work?"



"Yes." Matt stepped more fully into the room. This was his own home, but he felt like an intruder in this room. He could quite happily wander into Mello\'s study, but this room didn\'t feel like it had his mark upon it. It was a show-room, with carefully placed dried flowers and framed prints. It didn\'t feel like a room that could be messed up. "I\'m going to order pizza. Want some?"



"I\'m happy to cook." Mello replied brightly. "In fact, I\'d like to. I could get really into cooking."



Matt stared. He couldn\'t work out which of the half a dozen ulterior motives, that he assumed Mello was working towards, was behind this sudden interest in cooking. He spoke more sharply than he had intended. "What\'s that you\'re reading? \'The Good Housewife\'s Guide\'?"



Mello blinked at him and held it up, "No, it\'s the \'History of the Peloponnesian War\' by Thucydides." He tried to look apologetic. "Sorry, did I just not fit whatever version of me that you currently have in your head?"



"To be honest, Mello, I have no idea where your head is these days." Matt could feel the irritation rising again and it burst out of him in an incoherent stream of words. "You\'re wearing eye-liner again for the first time since you were in the Mafia. You\'ve definitely got a concealer stick, because I saw it on your dresser. I mean you\'ve always flirted around the edges of androgyny or transvestitism, whatever you\'re going to call it, with your hair and all; but that dressing gown you\'ve bought is a woman\'s gown. I don\'t know if you noticed that. I suspect you did. Then all the bloody interior design and flowers and poetry and now you\'re cooking! For fuck\'s sake, why don\'t you just be honest with yourself and go and buy a freaking dress?" He glanced up now, but Mello was still just looking at him, his expression unreadable. "It\'s not like you haven\'t got enough jewellery to accessorise!"



"Interesting." Mello replied blandly. He had already changed back into his leathers and his whole stance seemed to be oozing testosterone. "Do I confuse you, Mail?"



"No! You confuse yourself!" Matt bit back. He could feel himself losing the argument before it even started, because he couldn\'t even work out himself what he was upset about. "I just wish you would make up your mind what you were fucking aiming for, because right now you seem to be bouncing between male and female, like you don\'t know which one to be."



"I was aiming for androgyny." Mello smiled. "Actually no, I was aiming for doing whatever I damn well pleased. Since when have you worried about gender distinctions? Why should the girls get all the pretty things to wear? I\'m claiming some of them for us and anyone with a problem with that can tell the barrel of my gun." He grinned, but his gaze was piercing. "What\'s really on your mind, guapo?"



"How close are we to splitting up?"



Now Matt had solicited a reaction. Mello looked stunned and uncertain. He paused for a couple of beats before responding, "Nowhere near. Are we?"



"Then why are you always on my back over shit?" Matt accused. "You won\'t touch me anymore. It\'s like you\'re miles away and I know you\'re blaming me for the Mario Clause, even if it\'s..."



"Matt!" Mello leapt off the settee and pulled the redhead into a tight embrace. "I am not fucking blaming you! How many more times do I have to say it?" Matt could feel himself crawling inside, just wanting to push Mello off him and get out of there. "Baby, I married you five days ago and now you\'re talking to me about splitting up? Do you want to split up?"



"No." Matt groaned.



"Then why are you giving me a fucking heart-attack, arsehole?" Mello stepped back, his hands flying up to the top of his head, like he was afraid it would fly off. "Ok, stop. Stop and take stock. Mail, look me in the eyes, without goggles, and tell me that you don\'t want to split up."



"I don\'t want to split up."



"Without goggles!" Mello snapped, reaching to remove them himself. "Tell me again."



Matt felt naked. He peered up through his fringe and repeated the words that Mello wanted to hear. "I don\'t want to split up with you."



"Good." Mello exhaled. "Because I wasn\'t going to let you anyway." He sat down on the arm of the settee and his stare felt like it penetrated through Matt\'s skull and probed every buried thought. "From the beginning please. Are you so desperate for pizza that me cooking causes undue anxiety?"



"No." Matt sniffed. "If you want to cook, I\'ll eat it. Thank you."



"Ok." Mello straightened slightly. "So the way I look is suddenly a problem?"



"No. I fancy the pants off you." Matt could hear where this was leading and he squirmed inside. "Ok! I\'m being the unreasonable one! I admit it! I\'m going to go and play Zelda and then I\'ll be fine. Sorry." He turned to leave, but Mello was immediately on his feet and following him. "What? Mell, I said I was in the wrong. Just leave it!"



"So you did actually come in to pick a fight?"



Matt sighed. He stared up at the stained glass, then longingly at the stairs. "Get it over with."



"Get what over with?" Mello was still staring. Matt could practically see the evaluations being made and conclusions being reached.



"You always have to have the last word, so can you just have the last word and let me go and do what I need to do."



"Play Zelda." Mello responded, wryly. Matt nodded and sped off up the stairs, taking them two at a time. Mello\'s voice sailed up after him. "Mail! I hadn\'t finished."



Matt had nearly made it to the landing. He sighed and hung over the bannister. "Play Zelda were great last words." Matt watched a flash of annoyance make it past Mello\'s blank expression, so bit back his own further retorts. Mello ranting was not a situation that was generally over quickly and all Matt wanted to do right now was disappear into his study and stay there for a while. "Ok, sorry, what?"



Mello was standing with one foot on the bottom step, his fist clenched over the knob at the bottom of the bannister. "What do you mean that I won\'t touch you? I think that if there\'s any distance in this relationship, it\'s not me who\'s causing it. You keep freezing on me, Matty. What am I supposed to do about that?" He frowned. "I mean, I know one way that\'s never failed before, but I have my reasons for not wanting to inflict it on you."



"Sex!" Matt made it to the top of the stairs and leaned on the landing bannister instead. "Our sex-life is non-existent. We\'re like some bad cliche. Get married, become celibate. What happened to the hot sex? I remember the wedding. I remember you strutting into my study like a Mafia don. I remember you asking me to fuck you. Then what? I\'ll tell you what, Mihael. The fucking Mario Clause is what. It\'s like a permenant fucking stain on..." He paused, watching Mello bounding up the stairs. Instinct told him to just run, but Matt held his ground, even as the leather-clad blond reached the top and rounded onto him. Only then did Matt point at the blood-stain in the carpet. "That\'s the last time you fucking touched me. The day you brought me back from that Hell! Since then..."



Mello grabbed him and threw him against the panelling to engulf him in a deep, longing kiss. Fingers bruised as they dug into Matt\'s biceps on both arms. Matt responded, desperation crushing his lips against Mello\'s. He could feel the Judas tears on his own face and pride made him hope they were Mello\'s, even as he had to blink them away from his own lashes. Mello pulled away, though his grasp didn\'t waiver. "Yes! The Mario Clause incident happened, but it\'s not me who is breaking under it. I don\'t give a shit about it! But I care about you." Mello held him in place, as Matt would have pulled away. "Can you even see what you\'re going? You\'re doing it right now! I\'m trying to tell you that I care and you\'re trying to get away from me. I know you\'re working on the Watari thing, so I\'ve given you space; but you are using it as an excuse to keep distance between us anyway. You were not working on your reformation of Wammy\'s House when you were tatting in your workshop." He pressed in a knee to further hold Matt against the wall. "Baby, stop. Please. You promised me that you\'d try."



"Please don\'t try to land all of this on me." Matt hated that tears were fogging up his goggles. He loathed the feeling that his emotions were firing on random cylinders that had nothing to do with his reason. He was turning into Mello. "You don\'t even reach for me anymore. You just, I mean, you come for cuddles and holding me and shit, but it\'s punishment, isn\'t it? You don\'t want to own me anymore."



Mello bowed his head, exhaling loudly. "God! I could shake you sometimes." He looked back up, willing softness into his flashing eyes. "So cuddles, kisses, holding each other, in fact you topping me, none of that counts as touching you? In fact, it\'s punishment! Fine. Fine, Matty. Fine." He released the painful pressing on Matt\'s arms and stepped back, hands together in an attitude of prayer, raised to touch his own lips. "This is what\'s going to happen. I\'m going to cook us something to eat. Later on, after our meal has gone down, I\'ll shag your arse off. In the meantime though, I\'m giving you some homework. A little task to get those genius braincells around." Matt couldn\'t help himself. The sob just burst out of him and he bowed his head, sagging a little against the panelling. Mello relented immediately. One arm snaked behind Matt\'s neck, pulling him close again, muscles flexing behind his head. The other hand rubbed his back. "I know you\'re hurting, Mail. I really know you\'re hurting. But guess what? The sun is still in the sky and shining above us."



Despite himself, Matt laughed. The image of Mello prancing about on the kitchen table was as amusing as it had been astounding. "Yeah, I guess it is." He reached up to pull his goggles off and wiped his eyes, before relaxing into Mello\'s embrace. Mello rocked them slowly, as Matt clung on, his goggles dangling from gloved hands behind Mello\'s back. "I still can\'t believe you did that."



Mello chuckled. "Nor me." He kissed Matt\'s ear. "But if it brings you out of your shell, I\'d do it again. Deny it if you ever breathed a word to anyone else, of course. Love you, Mail."



"I\'m sorry for all the things I said downstairs. I think it\'s sweet when you make yourself all pretty."



"It\'s for shock value mostly."



"Bollocks, Mihael. It\'s to make yourself pretty."



Mello laughed. "Yeah, it is." A smile remained on his face. Matt could feel it against his ear. "But so what? Fuck \'em. I can look pretty if I want to look pretty."



"That\'s the spirit."



"Baby, as much as I\'m looking forward to it, you know that sex isn\'t going to magically make this all better, don\'t you?" Mello\'s breath was hot against Matt\'s ear and his hand had ridden up, underneath the striped shirt, to slide just beneath the waistband of his jeans. Matt could feel the black leather of Mello\'s glove against the small of his back and it did feel like sex might solve a lot of things. "You\'re going to have to at least acknowledge that you\'ve been profoundly shaken up before you can even try to rebuild your defences. Burying your head in the sand isn\'t going to make it go away this time, guapo, and I can\'t make it go away for you. Trust me, I would if I could. I love you to bits, but you\'re like a walking, wide, open wound right now and there\'s nothing I can do except be here for you and try not to make it worse."



Matt nodded, but his sensibilities shrank from hearing it again. "I know, Mell. I will try. I promise."



"Thank you." Mello leaned back and kissed him again. "I\'m going to cook now. Go and play Zelda. It\'s alright." Another kiss and Mello was away, dashing down the stairs. He was halfway down before his voice rose in song, echoing on the tiles and the rafters, "\'Chiquitito tell me the truth, I\'m a shoulder you can cry on, your best friend, and the one you must rely on.\'" He chuckled as he vaulted over the bannister, from several feet up and landed, catlike, with barely a stumble. "Damn! I need to work on my Parkour again." Then he was gone, into the kitchen, out of view.



Silently watching from above, Matt smiled. It had just occurred to him, all over again, just how much he loved Mello. Deeply so, his heart panging like some senseless, banal thing from a romantic novel, just because the blond had left his side. He touched gloved fingers to his lips, where they had just been kissed and debated going downstairs to keep Mello company while he cooked. But he decided against it. It might be better for them both if he just hid in his room, until he was fit to face the world again without the risk of tears or fury. He sauntered into his study and played his games.